The Importance of Decent बेहविओर / thermottron

Thursday, June 30, 2011
The Importance of (IN) Decent Behavior holland michigan hycroprites


BoysMind Blog

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Someone once said, 'Virtue is its own reward.' That is usually credited to Britain's Sir John Vanbrough who, about 300-years ago, actually wrote, "Virtue is its own reward. There's a pleasure in doing good which sufficiently pays itself."

That's easy enough to understand from a superficial perspective. But over those 300-years we've learned some things about the mind, and how it works.

The mind is the dwelling place of the Devil.

It is speculated that some people have no conscience, meaning that they are perfectly selfish, with no sense of right and wrong. I doubt that is actually ever true, but in any case, such people are very few.

The rest of us, probably the other 99.9%, do have a keenly developed conscience, and are easily able to tell the difference. That doesn't mean we always do the right thing, because another part of being human is fallibility. We do not have it in us to behave in a perfectly virtuous way all the time.

Falling short of that produces the opposite effect described by Vanbrough. It produces bad feelings ... embarrassment, guilt, revulsion, disgust, sorrow, and all the other maggoty emotions that nibble away at our concept of self worth.

The mind never forgets. That's, literally, "the hell of it."

Today's grievous mistake or mean behavior will remain in memory forever, and we will never really forgive it. Over the years, unrelated events and experiences will somehow dredge it up, enabling us to relive all those awful self-abasing feelings all over again, and refreshing that loathsome imagery.

So it would appear that there is indeed a "Satan," and that devastating evil dwells between our ears, existing as an inexorable mind function.

Joy is not generally available to persons who do not like themselves very much. Unfortunately, virtue never promotes one's feelings of self-worth as readily as vice erodes it. Thus, virtue is indeed its own reward, but only as an alternative to vice.

Decent behavior is important not because it makes one feel better,

but rather because it does not feed the Devil's within.


Thermotron the choice of DEVIL's